


When Lovers Touch

by thefondestblindestweakest



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, I Am Aware These Tags Make No Sense, Just Ignore Them And Dive Right In, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:40:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefondestblindestweakest/pseuds/thefondestblindestweakest
Summary: "The chances of finding one’s soulmate are so impossible, it takes millions of reincarnations for most matches. Marius and Cosette found each other, and Éponine - awful, jealous, pathetic Éponine, - had ruined it. She’d lured Marius to his deathbed, and for what? She wasn’t his soulmate, he didn’t come back as a ghost, and now the lovers would have to try and find one another again, for another million lifetimes. They might never find each other.Éponine disgusted herself."OR: AU where you reincarnate until you unite with your soulmate, but soulmates who break their bond become ghosts for eternity, or until they reconcile.
Relationships: Combeferre/Courfeyrac (Les Misérables), Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Courfeyrac/Marius Pontmercy, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Fantine/Félix Tholomyès, Marius Pontmercy/Éponine Thénardier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. Sister and Swine

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is all about ghosts, so death is a pretty major theme.
> 
> this AU is ... complicated? maybe? i think you'll understand more and more as you read, but if you'd rather just read a quick "universe rules" explanation, check the ch. 1 end notes.
> 
> this is my first EVER fic! hope u enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroine realizes she’s made a grave mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: there's some blood and death in this chapter, nothing too bad.

> _When lovers touch, their bones begin to shake_
> 
> _They tremble with a quick and lovely pain_
> 
> _But should one lover cause their bond to break_
> 
> _Their wretchéd souls will on this Earth remain_
> 
> _And neither soul may walk the blesséd path_
> 
> _To enter that good place the dead should live in_
> 
> _Until they find their spectral other half_
> 
> _To give forgiveness or to be forgiven_
> 
> _A ghost that clings to all it’s Earthly pride_
> 
> _Shall never find eternal liberation_
> 
> _A pair that wishes to leave unified_
> 
> _Needs must achieve true reconciliation_
> 
> _And once this act of goodness has been done_
> 
> _Their souls shall join the moon and stars and Sun_

**\--**

When she finally came to, the first thing she felt was shame. The shame was awful, it burned in her throat, in her chest, behind her eyes.

The grief was worse.

The sight of her own lifeless body stirred nothing in her. Gaunt, fair-haired, her chest soaked in blood. It had been a quick death. Quicker than she deserved. She compared her new, spectral hands to the ones that belonged to the body in front of her. Translucent as they were, she preferred them to the ones she’d owned before. These were cleaner, devoid of blemish. The hands she used to own were scarred and calloused, and usually caked in grime. The hands on her dead body were worse, her left hand caked in the blood that poured out of her torso, the right a grotesque mangled thing, torn open by a musket ball. She had been happy, at first, to die a savior. She thought she’d saved him.

And then she had watched Marius fall to the ground, lifeless.

Éponine, or what was left of her, searched the ground. She spotted him immediately. Beautiful, even in death, even with a hole in his heart. She’d gotten what she wanted, and yet all she felt was grief and shame. She should have given him the letter. She should have told him she loved him. She should have saved him.

She looked again at her hands, at their pathetic opacity. This was her punishment, then. No heaven, no hell. Stuck in a memory of the skin she so hated while she lived. Eternity as a ghost, the proper sentence for betraying one’s soulmate. Her unrequited soulmate.

Éponine examined the scene around her. A young man was watching Marius’ body being carried away, crying noiselessly. To his right was a beautiful man (a boy, really. He didn’t look much older that Éponine herself) who stared stonily straight ahead, a hand rested on the crying man’s shoulder. Another man, standing on the left, was speaking to the crying man in a low voice. He was tall, with a kind face, and just as Éponine considered getting closer to hear what things he was saying, his gaze turned up towards her. He was looking directly through her.

No, he was looking _at_ her.

His eyes widened, and flicked from where Éponine stood to where her body was being moved, obviously making the connection. Éponine stared at the man the with the kind face, feeling a rush of panic. Maybe it’s nothing, she thought. Maybe he really is just looking through me at something. She stood perfectly still, holding her breath.

The man with the kind face walked towards her with a nerve-wracking urgency. Éponine wondered what he’d do when he reached her. Could ghosts be physically harmed? She really didn’t want to find out.

Much to her surprise, the kind-faced man didn’t stop in front of her. Instead, he walked right past her, in wide, determined strides. Just as he reached her, he said something under his breath, undoubtedly meant for Éponine to hear:

_“The alley behind the Café Musain. Go. Quickly.”_

The kind-faced man took another few steps, then pretended to pick something up from the ground. Éponine whirled around to look at him, wanting more explanation, or maybe wanting him to whisper words of comfort to her like he’d done for his crying friend. He looked up at her from where he knelt on the floor and mouthed: _GO_.

She did.

\--

Travelling was easy as a ghost. It wasn’t walking, there was no operating of the appendages. It was more like willing herself to move forward, being pushed to her desired location by some wind of her own design.

She had been to the Café Musain once. Marius and his revolutionary friends frequented the spot. Idiots, the lot of them. Marius was the first to go, but Éponine knew the rest would soon follow.

When she reached the alley, she felt a sinking feeling in her chest. Someone was there. Of course, she thought, it was a trap. Éponine knew better than to trust men with kind faces. Marius’ face was so kind. She turned to leave, to find somewhere to hide, when the person in the alley called out, “Hello! Mademoiselle, please! Stop! I’m like you!”

Oh.

Upon second look, it was clear that this person was a ghost, just like her. A man, looking about forty years old. He was prettily dressed, and had a lovely face, and two rows of very handsome teeth. Éponine didn’t leave, but she didn’t get any closer either. She mustered up the most intimidating scowl she could. It must have worked at least a bit, because the ghost flinched.

“You are a Mademoiselle, aren’t you? I am sorry, I meant no offense.”

At this, Éponine softened. There was something playful in his voice. She didn’t trust the man, but she didn’t think he meant any harm either. She spoke, for the first time since her death:

“Do I not strike you as a pretty young bride?”

The man laughed at this. Éponine was shocked, not with what she said, but with how she sounded. In life, her voice was hard and weathered, but now, it was low and silky. She wanted the ghost to ask her something else. She wanted to soliloquize in this new voice of hers. How different things would have been if she’d had a voice like this while she lived.

The man answered her wish quickly. “Not at first, I must admit,” he replied, moving towards her, “But now that I’ve gotten a better look at you, I can see very plainly that you are a great prize indeed. How I pity your widower, Madame! How will he find himself a bride to match you in beauty?”

Now it was Éponine’s turn to laugh. “You are a flatterer,” she said, allowing her voice to grow louder and more confident, “But you are forgiven, as I do so like to be flattered.”

The ghost‘s grin crinkled his eyes at the corners, and Éponine couldn’t help but find him charming. He was quite close to her now, and his eyes shone as he asked her, “And what is your name, Madame . . . ?”

Éponine smirked. “No, you were right the first time. It is Mademoiselle Thénardier, only nobody calls me that.”

“What do they call you, then?”

“Many things. I am called sister and swine alike, sometimes in a single breath. Most often, I’m just called the Jondrette girl.”

“What,” the ghost asked, his cheeky grin flattening into something kinder, more earnest, “do you want to be called?”

“Éponine.” she said gently. She hadn’t been capable of speaking gently before. She briefly mourned all of the things she might have said with her new voice, with her new unblemished hands. The ghost must have sensed her sadness, because he gingerly rested a hand upon her shoulder.

“Éponine, my name is Félix. I would like to explain to you the laws of the world we share, if you’ll let me.”

Éponine listened. It can not be said that she did not listen. But old habits die hard. She listened, sure. But Éponine did not obey.

\--

Time meant nothing to her. She heard death, she felt it, and she even saw it at one point, but she did not move. She only worried, and cried. Every tear she shed was for the same man.

Surely she would have seen his ghost if she had broken their bond. They died in quick succession, so his ghost couldn’t have travelled far. No, Éponine had not broken their bond, because the bond was one sided. She had doomed herself to an eternity as a spirit, but not Marius. What she did to him was not that bad, but not really much better either.

She thought constantly about the words in Cosette’s letter. She wanted him to find her, she wanted to confirm their bond. Finding one’s soulmate required only a touch, the brushing of two gloveless hands. Confirming the bond, however, required something else entirely. A vow. A promise. Sometimes a kiss. Thinking about it filled Éponine with that burning shame. They probably hadn’t even kissed yet. They wanted to do things the proper way, wait until the time was right. She wanted him to find her, to kiss her at last, to confirm their bond so that they wouldn’t come back to Earth in new bodies when they died, but would depart together, the way it was described in fairytales.

The chances of finding one’s soulmate are so impossible, it takes millions of reincarnations for most matches. Marius and Cosette found each other, and Éponine - awful, jealous, pathetic Éponine, - had ruined it. She’d lured Marius to his deathbed, and for what? She wasn’t his soulmate, he didn’t come back as a ghost, and now the lovers would have to try and find one another again, for another million lifetimes. They might never find each other.

Éponine disgusted herself.

She found that she could assume one of two forms, the first looking very much like she did when she was alive, only devoid of color and depth. The second was the one she preferred. It looked like nothing at all, only a shimmery sort of fog. She could contract and expand, hide herself in shelves or holes. She liked this form very much. She didn’t like to be reminded of herself.

Well, of one of herself.

As time passed, Éponine found that she possessed memories from lives she didn’t recognize. She hadn’t always been called Éponine. She had been David, hit by a train at fifty three. Alma, death by scarlet fever at only five. Mohamed, a heart attack at ninety three. Sebastián, death by starvation at fourteen. Margrjet, a car crash at twenty nine. She hadn’t found her soulmate in any of those other lives, hadn’t even come close. Maybe that was for the best. Marius wasn’t even really her soulmate, and she'd still managed to ruin his chance at eternal happiness.

The tavern changed with the years. She only caught glimpses of it, whenever the door opened or closed, but she was always surprised with just how much things changed. Even the broom closet itself was constantly in flux. The Hoover has perplexed her. She found the Swiffer funny too.

What had been a run down establishment while she’d lived had been slowly converted into a tourist attraction, a place for Americans to visit on their expensive “Tours of Old Paris”. It was especially popular because of how haunted it was, although that fame couldn’t really be attributed to Éponine, who mostly just flitted from shelf to shelf. No, the bar’s reputation was mostly due to the poltergeist in the cellar. Éponine didn’t know much about it, other than the fact that they died not long after she did. It didn’t take very kindly to people bothering them, and Éponine decided it was best to just stay out of it's way. She supposed she owed it some solidarity. They were both breaking the law, after all.

The ghost, the man- _Félix_ , had explained the laws as best as he could.

\--

“It’s complicated, but then so are the laws of the living.” he told her. “For the time being, there are three you’d ought to know. No haunting, no malevolence, and no interference.”

“No haunting, you say?” Éponine parroted with incredulity. “It’s against the law for ghosts to _haunt_?”

“Yes. Haunting a location is more of a misdemeanor. Haunting a person is a greater crime, but still, neither are -“

“I don’t understand.” Éponine interrupted. “Is haunting not a ghost’s purpose?”

“Not at all.” Félix replied. “Consider, the history of man is so dense that surely there are millions and millions of ghosts, of lovers who have done wrong. Perhaps fewer ghosts than there are people, but still, so many.”

“Alright?” Éponine replied. She couldn’t see where this was going. Félix continued.

“Well, have you ever been haunted?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been somewhere haunted?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.”

“You would know if you have.”

“Then no, I haven’t.”

“Well, there you go.” Félix’s face went smug, and Éponine thought it didn’t suit him very much.

“I still don’t understand.”

“If every ghost went around haunting humans, haunting a would be commonplace! No,” he said, “Only the outcasts haunt. Madmen, stalkers, and poltergeists. There will always be a few who break the law. But most of us . . .”

“You lie low?”

“Not exactly.” Félix said, his cheeky grin returning. “There are designated haunted sites, all registered at the bureau.”

“The bureau?”

“Even in death, there is bureaucracy, Mademoiselle. The living martyr themselves for a republic, but the ghosts have already built one.”

Éponine considered this. “So, where will I live? Am I to be nomadic, or will I make a home?”

“You’ll be assigned a location.” Félix replied.

“Is this yours?”

“Yes.”

“You must have done something rather awful to earn a home such as this.”

She regretted it as soon as she said it. Félix laughed, but it was small and hollow. “How right you are.” he said.

Éponine changed the subject. “What is malevolence?” she asked. “And why isn’t it worse than interference?”

Félix brightened. “Malevolence can be anything from flickering the lights to causing physical harm. Interference is a worse crime by far. To communicate with the living, to use your ghost-hood as a means to manipulate them? Or to go so far as to possess a living person? There is no worse crime.”

Éponine frowned. Surely hurting a living being was worse than communicating with one? If Félix noticed her skepticism, he ignored it, opting instead to accompany her to her registration. Éponine’s reply came automatically:

“I’m not doing that.”

“What do you mean you’re _not doing that_?” Félix demanded. There was a nervous edge to his words.

“I mean I am _not doing that_. I will register nowhere. I’m going to find somewhere to live.”

“It’s the law, Mademoiselle. You must!”

“I know not who devised these laws, therefore I haven’t any reason to respect them.” she retorted.

Félix stares at her, mouth agape. If she didn’t know better, Éponine might say that there was a hint of awe mixed in with his apparent horror. She continued.

“And you, will you report me?”

There was a silence. Then:

“I will not.”

“Then it’s settled.” Éponine turned to leave. “Thank you for your help, Monsieur. I shan’t be a burden any longer.”

“Mademoiselle! _Éponine!_ ” he called, but Éponine just kept going, right inside the Café, straight into the first empty closet she found.

\-- 

Haunting a broom cupboard was really of no consequence, and in the years since she’d made the cupboard her home, there hadn’t been any interference. Custodians came and went, gathering supplies and mopping their brows. Occasionally, when the bar was crowded, a couple would stumble into the unlocked cupboard for privacy. The first few times, Éponine hid herself away, averting her gaze. Now, she watched the strangers kiss and touch one another. The voyeurism didn’t arouse anything in her other than curiosity. She wondered whether the couples were soulmates. She wondered whether this was their first kiss, or their twentieth. She wondered what it felt like to be kissed, touched, loved. She wondered whether you could truly love someone other than your soulmate. She wondered, and she watched.

She didn’t wonder any of those things about the couple that snuck into the closet, hand in hand, whispering giddily.

“Does it feel haunted to you?”

“No idea. I don’t really know what haunting is supposed to feel like.”

“I don’t know, like, are you scared?”

“With you here? No.”

“ _God_ , you’re so cute.”

Their lips met. The girl was much shorter than the boy, but she took up more room. She had a warmth about her, something that made you want to know her, want to touch her.

But it was the boy Éponine couldn’t tear her eyes away from. He was broad shouldered and bespectacled. Éponine was sure she’d never seen his face before, but there was something about him she recognized. The air around him was familiar. His breath.He pulled away from the girl and grinned, and it hit Éponine all at once.

That boy was Marius Pontmercy. Or, he used to be.

And the girl he was kissing was _definitely not_ Cosette Fauchelevant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, it's an AU where everybody has a soulmate (or two? but shh joly/bossuet/musichetta, this isn't about u), but they reincarnate randomly until they find them. 
> 
> u can feel soulmates, u can tell u have met ur match when u touch, but to end things, to end the cycle of reincarnations and enter the afterlife with them, u must make a mutual promise. this can be sex, marriage, "true love's kiss", or something else, but the intentions must be mutual.
> 
> after the bond is formed, u must stay true to ur partner (whatever THAT means). betraying ur true love results in BOTH lovers becoming ghosts. it is said that if the lovers can reconcile as ghosts and repair their bond, they get a second chance at entering the. afterlife.


	2. Beaumont et Duchamp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet two familiar faces. Rather, two completely new faces with very familiar souls.

Jules Beaumont never spoke about religion or ideology or anything with people his own age, mostly because he knew that if he was honest about what he believed he might be teased at best or start a full fledged argument at worst. He knew it was super traditional, and a bit problematic, and honestly it probably caused more harm to him and his relationships than good, but he couldn’t help it.

He just really believed in soulmates.

His parents weren’t soulmates. He learned that when he was about seven, the same day they’d announced their divorce. He’d run off to cry under his bed covers, and his parents had followed him, saying that everything would be alright, that Maman and Papa still loved him very much and that they were still a family. Jules wasn’t stupid, he knew all of those things. He explained himself to his parents, a sob still in his voice:

“Will you guys be ghosts now?”

His mother smiled at that. “No,” she said. “Papa and I aren’t soulmates, we were just two people in love.”

“And now,” his father added, “We’ll get another chance at finding our real soulmate.”

“But that doesn’t mean that we’re not still a family. We both love you very much, and we’ll love you in the next life and the next life and the one after that.”

That was enough to mollify Jules. For the next few years, he asked his parents constantly whether they’d found their soulmates yet. He stopped asking once he grew old enough to understand just how many people are on the Earth, and how slim the chances of finding one’s soulmate are during any given reincarnation. He didn’t stop hoping his parents would find their soulmates, he wanted it so badly for the both of them, but he did stop asking.

Instead of asking, he wrote. All of the stories he wrote in Grammar class ended with soulmates meeting and cementing their bond with a true love’s kiss (his teachers always found these stories very sweet). When he went through a brief angsty phase, his stories were about soulmates who barely missed one another, or died before their bond was sealed, or (when he was feeling particularly morose) wronged one another and became ghosts. Still, even then, his favorite movies always ended in a sealed bond, or a reconciliation. What could he say? He was a romantic.

Most people his age didn’t believe in soulmates. “It’s bullshit,” one of his friends would often declare. “There’s not just one perfect person out there for everyone. That’s not how relationships work. You put work into them.”

“Soulmates do have to put work into their relationships.” was Jules’ rebuttal. “Otherwise the ghost thing is irrelevant.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in that ghost shit too.” his friend replied. Seeing how red Jules’ face went was answer enough. “Oh, Jules, come on. No fucking way. ‘ _Their wretchéd souls will on this Earth remain?’_ Come on. That is such religious horse crap. Okay, so like, let’s say I have a soulmate. If I cheat on my soulmate or like, abuse him or something, we BOTH become ghosts? Even if he didn’t do anything? Fuck that. Does that make any sense to you?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Jules admitted. It really didn’t make any sense at all, but still, he couldn’t help but believing.

He touched people all the time. It’s not like he was actively looking for his soul mate, but it couldn’t hurt to check, right? Touching was always exciting. Finding out which people he’d known in one of his past lives. He’d known his father, but not his mother. He’d known his first grade teacher very well once, and his first kiss only in passing. He wondered constantly about the people he had been before Jules. Whether they’d done anything of note, whether they’d believed in soulmates too. Of course, there was no way of knowing anything about one’s past selves, besides the fact that their search for a soulmate had been obviously unsuccessful. But still, Jules wondered.

When he touched Corinne for the first time, he felt so much sympathy for his past selves, knowing that they’d never felt anything like what he was feeling then.

Corinne Duchamp was the sort of beautiful, lively girl who always got a happy ending in the soulmate movies Jules loved so much. They met in Jules’ favorite library on campus at the University he attended. He was re-reading an old love story, a favorite of his, full of ghosts and declarations of love and with, of course, a happy ending. She sat right in front of him.

“Have you gotten up to the bridge scene yet?” she asked.

Jules went an embarrassing shade of scarlet. He was never any good at talking to girls. He cracked under pressure. “I, no, they’re still in New York.” he managed to get out. This made the the pretty girl beside him smile even wider (which had the effect of making Jules go even more red).

“Not your first read?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I’ve read this like a hundred times. I don’t know why, I know it’s not like high art or anything.”

“It’s just something about happy endings.” the girl said. She held out her hand. “My name’s Corinne.“

Jules hesitated. He usually shook hands with reckless abandon, wanting to make sure he’d swept the whole of the city in the search for his one true love. But now, looking at Corinne’s manicured hand, at her bright white smile, at her warm and inviting eyes, he was nervous. It would be silly to be hurt if he hadn’t known her, or if he wasn’t meant to know her, but he knew it would feel like a rejection. Swallowing his insecurities, he shook her hand.

It was like a traffic light went green inside of his limbs.

“One of two things.” Corinne said. Her voice was even, but the way her eyes were widened made it clear that she was feeling the same thing Jules was. “Either one: we knew each other very well in a past life. Like, super well. Like you were my mom or something.”

“Or two?”

“Or two: we’re soulmates.”

She said it so casually that Jules didn’t register her words for a moment. When that moment passed, his jaw gave out on him.

“You believe in soulmates?”

“Sure, doesn’t everybody?”

“Uh,” Jules laughed nervously. “No?”

“Then everybody is dumb.” Corinne replied. “Dumb or lying.”

“I’ve never felt anything like that before.” Jules said. Corinne’s expression changed at that, melted into something that Jules thought he could stare at for a long while without growing bored.

“Me neither.” she whispered. “Do you think we might actually be soulmates? Is there a way to check? It’s not like we can Google it. Or can we? There’s probably a soulmates subreddit, right?”

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” Jules blurted out. He hadn’t meant to, he was fully intending on making some cool joke that would make Corinne fall in love with him. Corinne laughed.

“I don’t think you ever said your name.”

“It’s Jules.”

“Okay, Jules. Yes. But I pick the place.”

\--

The Café Musain was full of tourists (and one very pretty girl who might have been a travel blogger). Jules usually hated being in crowded places, but he was too busy focusing on keeping his palms from going embarrassingly sweaty to care about capacity.

“I hate how tourist-y this place is.” Corinne said. She wove through the crowded café with ease, claiming one of the two open seats at the bar. The barista, a tall, bespectacled girl covered in tattoos, smiled at her shyly. Corinne winked back, and flashed a smirk with such ease that Jules was sure this was something she did all the time. What must it be like, to make a strangers’ day with nothing more than a wink and smile? The beautiful, confident people of the world were a mystery to Jules.

“You picked this place!” Jules managed after clambering onto his stool. Corinne grinned mischievously. (Dimples!)

“All will be clear very soon, lover boy.” she said conspiratorially. She very generously pretended not to notice how red her choice of sobriquet had turned poor Jules. She continued, “But until then, I would like to know more about you! What is one fact about you that I should know?”

“I . . . am twenty one?”

“Boo. No.” Corinne made a sour face, feigning disappointment, but the corners of her pout revealed a smile. “Something INTERESTING.”

“I’m not really the most interesting person.” Jules replied. He really wasn’t. Corinne seemed so . . . worldly. What fact could he share that would impress her?

“Unacceptable.” was Corinne’s reply. “My soulmate can’t be someone boring, so I refuse to believe that. I mean, there’s one thing already! You believe in soulmates!”

“That’s not really interesting, though.” Jules said. “Tons of people believe in soulmates.”

“Yeah, old people. Not many people our age. Not many guys our age.”

“Sexist much?”

“Oh, shut up.” Corinne laughed. “You know what I mean. It’s a stereotypical girl thing. Like Jane Austen and the color pink and rom-coms.”

“I like rom-coms.”

“Oh my God, where have you been all my life?” Corinne said, which was clearly a joke and shouldn’t have given Jules butterflies the way it did.

”Anyways,” Corinne went on, “now I have two things!”

“Two what things?”

“Two fun facts! You believe in soulmates and you like rom coms. Do you have a third?”

“I . . .” Jules frowns, thinking. “I speak a bunch of languages.”

“Which ones?”

“Besides French, I speak English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Ma-“

“Oh my God my soulmate is a genius.”

Jules grinned at her use of the word soulmate, the shook his head at the use of the word genius. “I learned most of them when I was really young, it’s easier to learn languages then.” he explained. “I learned German pretty recently, I guess. I don’t know. Languages just make sense to me.”

“Do you think stuff like that is nature or nurture?” Corinne asked thoughtfully. “Like, do you think maybe your past selves were polyglots too? Or is that just a Jules thing?”

“I don’t know. I mean, there’s no way of knowing, but my parents only speak French and like, baby level English, so I didn’t get it from them.”

“That is so interesting.” Corinne said earnestly. Jules smiled.

“Your turn. What’s something interesting about you?”

“In a second.” Corinne said. “Drinks are here!”

The tall barista set down two cups of something covered in whipped cream, cinnamon, and drizzled in caramel. “I made two of your usual, but if there’s something else you want I can get that too. Don’t worry-“ she said, noticing Jules’ confused expression. “These are on the house. My congratulations. I’ve never met a pair of soulmates before!”

Corinne blushed bashfully. “Thank you, that’s very kind.”

“Don’t mention it.” the barista said, her shy smile from earlier returning. She turned to Jules. “Try it,” she ordered, “And let me know whether there’s something else you’d like instead.”

“I’m sure this will be delicious, thank you so much!” Jules said. The barista grinned and went back to work. Corinne stared at the tattoo on the nape of her neck for a

second.

“What is it?”

“A butterfly, I think?”

“I mean the drink.”

“Oh!” Corinne snapped out of it. “It’s a snickerdoodle mocha.”

“Bless you.”

“That is such a dad joke. But try it, it’s literally so good. Starbucks makes them but they are NOTHING like the ones from here.” She paused, thinking. “Well, not like the ones from here when Elinor is working.”

“Are you friends with her?”

“Not really. She’s English, moved here for grad school. She’s studying to be a doctor. She’s been working here for like three months and I have not ordered anything but this drink pretty much every day since she started.”

“The guy who runs the coffee shop near where I grew up has worked there my whole life and I don’t even know his name.”

Corinne shrugged. “I like talking to people.” she said. “Drink the snickerdoodle!”

Jules did. It was amazing. Dangerously so. Jules had never been much of a coffee drinker, but this was something else entirely. Corinne watched him with joy.

“Watching someone else drink this is almost as good as actually drinking it.”

“So then I’ll drink both of them and you can watch for double the time.”

“Nice try, lover boy, but I said ‘almost.’”

Corinne and Jules didn’t run out of things to talk about. They discussed their families, their aspirations (both children of divorce, both in law school). They compared favorite music and romantic comedies (Corinne had heard of pretty much every band under the sun, and listened to everything from showtunes to trap. Jules basically stuck to the Apple Music “60s Love Songs” playlist. They both loved _Pretty Woman_.) When Jules checked the time at last, he realized a full three hours had passed since they’d arrived.

“Your barista friend gave us free drinks and we’re thanking her by loitering.”

Corinne laughed. “Elinor won’t kick us out, she’s good people. Anyways, we haven’t even gotten to the entire reason we came here.”

“So the reason we waded through a sea of tourists wasn’t just the snickerdoodle mochas?”

“Well, that was _one_ of the reasons. But the other is much more exciting. Jules,” she began, an almost maniacal grin spreading across her face. “What are your thoughts on ghosts?”

—

With the café at peak capacity, nobody would notice Corinne and Jules sneak into the broom closet easily. Jules was averse to the idea at first, but he couldn’t help it, he was just as curious about ghosts and soul bonds as she was.

“Okay, just stand here, don’t look suspicious.”

“Okay.” Jules said, leaning casually against the closet door.

“I said _don’t_ look suspicious.”

Jules shifted his posture to something almost a little normal. Corinne laughed, and then began scanning the room again, waiting for the perfect conditions for breaking and entering. Jules felt her hand grab his.

“Now!” she cried, opening the door, pulling him into the closet, and quickly shutting it.

Her very theatrical efforts were pretty anticlimactic. There were cleaning supplies. And it was marginally colder than the rest of the café. Jules giggled at how ridiculous the scene must look, and Corinne giggled back.

“Does it feel haunted to you?” she asked.

“No idea. I don’t really know what haunting is supposed to feel like.”

Corinne rolled her eyes. Jules suddenly became acutely aware that they hadn’t let go of each other’s hands. “I don’t know,” Corinne presses, “like, are you scared?”

If there was a time for boldness, it was then. Jules swallowed, and willed his palms to stay dry. “With you here?” he said. “No.”

Corinne grinned. She glanced down Jules’ mouth and leaned towards him. “God, you’re so cute.”

And then they were kissing. Jules didn’t know what he was expecting. It’s not like he thought there would be fireworks or fanfare or anything. He’d just hyped up the idea of a first kiss between soulmates, but now that he was actually doing it, all he felt was mouth on mouth, and eventually tongue on tongue. It was a nice kiss, warm and eager. It wasn’t like they were sealing their bond, they were just kissing. What had he -

The lights flickered.

“Holy shit.” Corinne said into Jules’ mouth. They pulled apart and looked at the single lightbulb that illuminated the cupboard.

“I mean, the lightbulb probably needs to be replaced.”

“Or it was a GHOST.”

“Or it was a ghost.” Jules agreed, laughing. Corinne was looking wildly from shelf to shelf, shuffling the cleaning supplies around. “I don’t think you'll be able to see it.” Jules said.

“Who knows, maybe I’m a Seer and I just haven’t run into any ghosts yet.”

Of all of the highly contentious aspects of the ghost realm, the existence of Seers was the most oft-refuted. There were a few people in the 80s and 90s who had T.V. shows claiming they could see ghosts and that if you sent donations they would “gather the necessary resources” to aid in their reconciliation process, but after some leaked footage proved that those telemediums were frauds, people started doubting whether Seeing was actually a thing. Even Jules had his doubts. There were large communities online full of people who claimed they were Seers, but there are large communities online for everything, so that hardly counted as proof.

“If anyone I’ve ever met is secretly a Seer, it would probably be you.” Jules said at last, which earned him a very wide grin from Corinne.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Anyways, I don’t see any ghosts with my mind’s eye or whatever, so maybe the lightbulb really is just broken. Sorry if we bothered you, Mister Ghost.” she said to a hand soap refill bottle perched on one of the shelves.

“‘Mister’?”

“Also sorry if I misgendered you, Ghost.” she added hastily. Jules looked around the perfectly normal supply closet. If it really was haunted, the ghost was sure doing a good job at hiding, because Jules felt quite warm inside. “Come on,” Corinne said, “Let’s go before we get thrown out and banned for life.”

—

STUPID BOY.

STUPID MARIUS AND HIS STUPID NEW FACE AND HIS STUPID NEW NAME.

STUPID THEN AND STUPID NOW AND PROBABLY STUPID IN EVERY OTHER LIFE IN BETWEEN.

It was all her fault.

STUPID STUPID STUPID.

She had to fix it.

STUPID IDEA.

She had to follow him.

VERY STUPID!

Which would technically mean haunting him.

STUPIDEST IDEA SO FAR!

Which would probably get her into trouble.

SO VERY STUPID.

His apartment had a perfectly sized linen closet for her to hide in.

STUPID SYNTHETIC BLEND SHEETS!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so eponine is in marius' linen closet, marius thinks courfeyrac is his soulmate, and i really wanna try a snickerdoodle mocha. stay tuned for more ghost shenanigans! WHO is jules beaumont's soulmate? WHAT will eponine thenardier do to fix all of this??? HOW does supernatural law enforcement work????????? find the answers to all of those questions and more coming up on Me Writing A Story That Nobody Will Read xoxoxoxo


	3. The Center and her Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jules and Corinne have an announcement, xo.

Some things Éponine learned about Corinne Duchamp during her stay in Marius’ (fine, JULES’) linen closet:

1) She was a giant flirt. She flirted with everyone. The pizza delivery guy. The landlord. Jules’ stepsister. Whenever Éponine looked at her phone screen (shut up she had a very noble mission to complete) she was always texting someone a winky face or a heart emoji. She ended everything she typed with “xo”, including emails to her professors and Yelp reviews. 

2) Éponine DEFINITELY recognized her from somewhere. She couldn’t quite place her, she knew she’d never spoken to her, but she was definitely around while Éponine was alive. Which meant that she’d probably known Marius Pontmercy when she was whoever she was in the early 19th century. Thinking about this only made Éponine think about how little she actually knew about Marius and his life despite how in love with him she was (is). So she tried not to think about it very often.

3) She made Jules incredibly nervous. Éponine watched how Jules relaxed when Corrine left his apartment. He was different when he was alone. He reminded her more of Marius Pontmercy that way. Did true love do that to you? Did it change you like that, make you go all tense in the shoulders? Éponine didn’t think so, but then again, what would she know?

She learned lots more things about Corinne. She knew that 4) Her favorite color was yellow, 5) She was incredibly stylish, 6) She read the newspaper on her laptop every morning, 7) She liked her coffee with tons of milk and sugar, but 8) really she preferred tea. Éponine thought she might actually really like Corinne if the circumstances were incredibly different. It made her feel a twinge of guilt about what she was planning to do. 

She liked Corinne fine, but love trumps like.

—

Corinne Duchamp’s first relationship was in the first grade with a boy named Emil. It lasted about four days. Corinne had done all of the heavy lifting in the relationship. She’d asked him to be her boyfriend, held his hand at music time, kissed him on the cheek at recess, and promptly dumped him when the whole relationship thing had gotten old.

Relationships getting old was a theme in Corinne’s life. It’s not that she didn’t like dating, she really did! Getting to know people was practically her favorite pastime (sex was a pretty close second). She was a romantic, really. It’s just that when she was with the same person for too long, she got antsy.

Corinne blamed her parents. They had been soulmates. She was very proud of that fact. In the third grade when everyone in her class gave presentations of their family tree, Corinne had included this fact on her poster board in large block letters. Nobody had believed her. To be fair, she herself had little reason to believe her parents. It’s not like they could prove that they were soulmates or anything. But they way her mother used to describe their first touch, their first kiss. Corinne couldn’t help but believe.

Still, this made it very difficult to date. After all, why bother with someone who wore on her nerves, who fought with her or didn’t fight at all, when there was a soulmate out there waiting for her? Yes, there were plenty of people who were happily committed to one another without being soulmates, but try as she might, Corinne didn’t think she could be one of those people. The idea of putting so much faith in someone she wasn’t meant to be with terrified her.

The only thing that terrified her more was finding her soulmate and losing them, like her father had.

When an appropriate number of years had passed since her mother’s death, Corinne convinced her father to set up a dating profile. He matched with a very lovely woman, and they’d agreed to meet at a little breakfast spot about equidistant from one another. After the date, her father had walked through the front door wordlessly, deleted his dating profile, and went to bed early. Corinne never brought up his dating life again.

He sure loved to bring up hers, though. “That young lady looked rather taken with you. Is she your girlfriend.”

“No, she’s . . . it’s casual.”

“Like it was ‘casual’ with Noam?”

“Papa!”

“I’m just saying, she seemed very nice.” He stared at her through his glasses, his voice going soft. “Your mother and I got lucky. Not all relationships are like ours, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth having.”

“Papa, trust me. I know.” And she did.

“I know you do. Just . . . just because it’s meant to be doesn’t mean it’ll come easy. Some things you have to work for.”

She called things off with Alice later that night. It wasn’t right to string her along.

—

“Am I, like, what do I say?”

“Just say regular ‘meeting the parents’ stuff. Don’t overthink it.”

“How could I not overthink this?”

“To be completely honest, you should be UNDERthinking this. I have half the usual number of parents, which means you only have half the amount of work.”

Jules made a small squeaking sound that made Corinne laugh. “I don’t know what you want me to do when you make jokes about your mom being dead.” Jules said.

“Laugh if the joke is funny, boo if not.” was her reply. Jules sighed. Corinne’s idea of funny usually just meant saying the thing she thought would make him blush the most. He didn’t say anything more, just braced himself and walked through the door.

Meeting Corinne’s father went . . . well? It definitely could have gone worse. Jules thought he gave solid answers to all of his questions, and had barely sweat at all, although Corinne completely blew his cover by saying “Papa, you’re making my boyfriend’s hands go all clammy, could you please ease up on the interrogation?” Thankfully, Monsieur Duchamp seemed not to care. In fact, at the words “my boyfriend”, her father seemed to relax considerably, and seemed pretty pleased with Jules for the rest of the night. 

Still, Jules was incredibly nervous when it came time to break the news. 

“What are you about to tell me?” Corinne’s father said suddenly, raising one of his eyebrows.

“What am - what am I what?”

“Oh, lover boy, you‘re bright red.” Corinne said. “Don’t worry Papa, it’s nothing incriminating, this is just how he gets.”

“This isn’t, I don’t get-“

“So there is something you have to tell me then?”

“Yes, M. Duchamp, there is.” Jules said, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat. Corinne smiled encouragingly. “Corinne and I wanted to tell you that we’re planning on moving in together.”

Jules braced himself, but nothing came. Corinne’s father looked at the pair, searching for something in their expressions, their posture, maybe. After finding what he was looking for, or perhaps after simply giving up on the search, he sighed.

“Well, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.”

Corinne pouted. If Jules didn’t know better, he’d think she wanted her father to object. “We’re not that predictable.” she argued. 

“You forget I used to be in your shoes. Your mother and I were engaged just under a month after our first touch.”

“These are different times, Papa! We’re being reckless!”

“Sure thing.”

“So, you’re not upset or anything?” Jules asked hesitantly. M. Duchamp laughed heartily.

“No, Jules. I trust my daughter. I trust the both of you. I’m going to miss her like hell, though.”

“Oh, Papa.” Corinne said, rising from Jules’ side to sit in her father’s lap. Jules liked watching Corinne with her father. She was usually so suave, but with her father she looked like a little girl.

“I’ll get over it quickly enough. What do you think, would your old room make a better office or game room. A mini aquarium, maybe?”

Corinne whacked her father’s arm playfully. “The polite thing to do would be to sleep in my bed every night for months and cry yourself to sleep to old camcorder videos of my dance recitals.”

“Nah, that doesn’t sound like any fun.“

“Compromise? Instead of converting my bedroom into your secret laboratory or whatever, why don’t you sign up for that exchange student thing?” Corinne suggested. Then, noticing Jules’ furrowed brow, “Papa has a friend who runs this exchange student program where they pair host families with students looking to conduct independent studies in France, not just students that are attending formal university. Now he has plenty of space, so . . . ?”

“So, I’ll think about it.”

“That means he’s going to do it.” Corinne stage-whispered.

They all talked for another hour or so, Jules finding that his shoulder got less and less tense as the evening went on. They discussed the perils of Parisian apartment hunting, embarrassing childhood memories (although pretty much nothing seemed to actually make Corinne embarrassed, damn her to hell), and plans to meet again with Jules’ parents and step parents some time. When it was time for Jules to leave, Corinne walked him to his car. M. Duchamp didn’t mention that the walk took far longer than the distance between their apartment and the parked car demanded. Instead, he smiled.

“You’re moving in with him.”

“Yeah.” Corinne said, a loopy grin on her face.

“With your boyfriend.”

“Uh huh.”

“Boyfriend of how long?”

“Uh, we met four months ago.”

“Four months?” her father arched an eyebrow. “So things are getting serious pretty quickly then?”

“I mean, I don’t know. Do you think they shouldn’t be?”

“I think you should do what feels right. Your mother and I moved quickly, you know that. But I know times are changing and people like to wait before taking big steps, so-“

“Do you like him?” Corinne blurted out. She’d wanted to ask this question the moment Jules shook her father’s hand.

“Yes,” her father said gently. “I do. Do you like him?”

“So much.” Corinne breathed. There was a pause. She had another question, one she wasn’t sure how to phrase. She gave it a stab anyways. 

“When you and Maman touched, how did you know you guys were soulmates, and not just like, really close in a past life?”

Her father’s face went dreamy. “You just . . . you just know. You touch and it’s like nothing you’ve ever felt, and you’re just absolutely sure that you’ve met the person you’re meant to be with. What did it feel like for you?”

“Like that.” Corinne lied. 

He’d told her once that just because something was meant to be didn’t mean it would come easily. It had been months since their first touch, so she couldn’t remember every detail, but she knew she hadn’t felt what her father was describing. Clarity. 

But she wasn’t her father. Relationships were always confusing for Corinne. She was never completely sure of anyone. She wasn’t completely sure about Jules, if she was being honest. She just knew that he made her really, really happy, so if she had to work for this, whatever it was, so be it. 

She wasn’t going to let him go on a technicality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know, it’s probably too soon for me to be posting another chapter, but here i am! am i a very fervent writer or am i fully wasting time while on the clock? who’s to say?? :D
> 
> STAY TUNED for a new character introduction, PLUS a quasi-revelation about m. duchamp! if you’re still reading, know that i appreciate u very much and i wish you all of the happiness, health, and good fortune in the world! thanks for listening!


	4. The See-Through Woman of Montreuil-sur-Mer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the songbird writes and breaks her own rules.

Mavis Marcano-Doyle spent the first eight years of her life believing that everyone knew about the see-through people. Her mother had taught her at quite a young age not to point and make comments about the people she saw after an unfortunate incident at the shopping mall during which she pointed at a young adult with a prosthetic leg and lots of piercings and referred to them as a “robot”. The person in question laughed off the remark, but her mother had been mortified, and Mavis learned that she oughtn’t make remarks about anyone’s appearance. The first time she saw a ghost, she thought this rule must apply to them too, so she simply smiled at the see-through woman without saying a word. The woman looked flabbergasted.

She went on this way until second grade, when her class was given a lesson in preparation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

“Our differences are what make us special!” Ms. Melville had said. Laura Melville was one of those teachers that always seemed so excited about what she was teaching that her students couldn’t help but feel excited to learn. She encouraged sharing aloud in class, and the bright smiles she dealt out upon hearing what her students had to say were a far better incentive than any sticker one could buy. Mavis’ hand shot up.

“Like how I have glasses but everyone doesn’t have glasses except me and you and Mommy and Julia D.?” Mavis said loudly. Julia D. gasped at this realization. Ms. Melville smiled.

“Remember to wait until I call your name to share with the class, Mavis,” she began, “But you’re absolutely right, that is something that makes us special!”

“I wanna have glasses too!” a small boy named Harrison cried.

“Me too!” shouted Julia S. “I’m gonna ask my Mommy to tell Santa to get me glasses too!”

“But Harrison and Julia S., you don’t need glasses to be special!” Ms. Melville explained. “Harrison, you have freckles and I don’t. I think those freckles make you very special. And Julia S., your wheelchair is super cool, and that’s one of the many things that makes YOU special! Nobody has all of the same things that make them special, and that’s what’s so great!”

The class was delighted by this excellent news. Ms. Melville went on.

“Another thing that makes us different from one another is the color of our skin. Some people have dark brown skin-“

“Like me!” Julia D. called out. 

“Yes, like you! And I think your skin is beautiful, and it makes you special! Some people have tan skin, like me, or like Mavis.” Mavis beamed with pride. “Other people have pale, light skin.“

“And some people have freckle skin!” Harrison declared.

“Remember to keep raising your hands, everyone, so I can call on you when it’s your turn to speak. But yes, you’re right, some people have freckled skin! There are so many different skin colors, and they’re all different, and that’s wonderful! Yes, Lorna?”

Lorna lowered her hand. “My my, my, my-“ she stammered excitedly, “My Mommy has black skin, and my Daddy has white skin, and my, my my, my Grandma has white skin and my Mee-Mee has-“

“Yes, Lorna, sometimes the people in our family have different colored skin, and sometimes the people in our family have the same color skin, but our skin colors are all awesome, whether you’re white or black-“

“Or see-through!” Mavis shouted.

As soon as the words left her lips, she had the distinct feeling that she’d done something wrong. Her classmates burst into laughter. “There’s no see-through skin!” Julia S. giggled. Everyone laughed but Ms. Melville, who instead wore a very odd expression. Mavis started to get nervous.

“Sorry for not raising my hand.” she said quickly. Ms. Melville seemed not to hear.

“Do you see see-through people, Mavis?” she asked in a quiet voice. Mavis nodded confusedly. Ms. Melville stared a little while longer, then coughed and continued her lesson. 

The Marcano-Doyle residence received a phone call from Mavis’ school later that day.

—

When Mavis turned fifteen years old, her parents let her go to France on summer vacation with Alec, a friend from school. His father was French, so his family spent a great deal of their time there, and Mavis’ parents had agreed to let her stay with them the moment she’d brought it up. Mavis was so withdrawn that whenever she asked to do something, which was incredibly rare, she could usually count on her parents to say yes.

“Have fun, baby!” Mr. Doyle said to her at the airport. “Remember to call us.”

“Maybe you’ll make a friend!” Ms. Marcano suggested. “A pen pal would be so cool.”

“I’ll make sure she has fun!” Alec said happily. Alec was one of the few people Mavis allowed to touch her. He was a great friend, incredibly warm and understanding. One of the few exceptions to her rules.

Mavis was a stickler for her list of rules.

She’d invented the rules not long after her parents received that phone call from Ms. Melville, after the long conversation about the “see-through people” with her parents. They were juvenile, sure, but they’d served her well.

  1. No talking about ghosts. If you tell the truth, people will think you’re crazy or a liar. 
  2. No talking to ghosts. Even if you knew them once. Especially if you knew them once.
  3. No touching anyone. The fewer people you touch, the fewer ghosts you’ll recognize in your next life.



That last rule, which had caused her the most problems, was also the rule that she had the least reason to stick to. She didn’t really know whether Seeing was something that stuck with you in every reincarnation, or whether this was unique to Mavis Marcano-Doyle. Still, if less touching meant saving her eventual reincarnations from seeing a ghost and feeling a tug of recognition, and from the wounded look on the ghost’s face when she ignored them, it was worth it.

However, this rule left her pretty touch-starved, so whenever she was with her parents, or Alec, she was constantly wrapped around them, draping her limbs across their shoulders or lacing her fingers in between theirs. Mavis spent the whole of their plane ride to Lille practically on Alec’s lap. He didn’t mind very much, only occasionally shifting when the weight of her caused one of his extremities to fall asleep. 

“We’ll spend most of our time in MEL,” Alec explained, “But we’ll definitely take the train to Paris to go full tourist. And we’ll probably go further north if time allows, like Calais-ish. God, this is gonna be so fun!” 

Pretty much all of those words went over Mavis’ head, but she smiled and nodded. Mavis’ parents didn’t really take her on vacations. She’d had city weekend in New York, and they’d done a brief trip to the Poconos a few years back, but nothing like this. 

France was wonderful, but Mavis couldn’t help but notice how many ghosts there were. Rather, how many OLD ghosts, ghosts that must have died hundreds of years ago. There had been a few older ghosts in New Jersey too, but most of the ghosts she passed every day couldn’t have died any earlier than 1940 or so. There were more ghosts in France than in the States, she thought, but these ghosts seemed less disappointed when Mavis ignored then. If anything, they seemed relieved. 

Mavis was hoping to fall in love with Lille or Calais, but despite her attempts to not be a giant cliché, there was _just something about Paris_. She’d never considered living anywhere other than near her parents, but walking arm in arm with Alec down the streets of Montorgueil, she thought she really could live there forever.

There was, of course, the small issue of language barrier.

She was lucky to have Alec as her translator. They’d created a code of sorts. Alec would speak for them at restaurants, and Mavis would nod at whatever he said. If the waiter directed a question directly at Mavis, Alec would squeeze her hand once for _oui_ and twice for _non._ If the question couldn’t be answered with a simple yes or no, Alec would rephrase the question so that it could be. 

“You know, lots of the waiters speak English.” Alec pointed out. “There are American tourists literally everywhere.”

“I know,” Mavis replied, “but I like to pretend I’m a local.”

She loved Paris most of all, but Lille and Calais were wonderful too. She was having the time of her life.

And then they visited Montreuil-sur-Mer.

She had nothing against the town itself, which was on the contrary incredibly lovely. She’d move into the Fromagerie Caseus if it wasn’t frowned upon, and the Roger Rodière Museum was very interesting. No, the town was lovely. 

The ghost was lovely too.

Mavis had felt that hum of recognition upon passing ghosts in the street before, but never anything like this. It was like her bones were shivering, but she wasn’t cold at all. In fact, she felt incredibly of warm all over. 

The ghost, a young woman, had close cropped hair and sunken in cheeks. She was incredibly beautiful, but also looked incredibly tired. Upon locking eyes with Mavis, the ghost gasped. For a moment Mavis thought she’d run away. When the moment passed, Mavis was surprised how disappointed that thought had made her. But the ghost wasn’t running away. She was _smiling_. It was a bright, warm smile. It reminded her a little of her second grade teacher’s, only with less teeth, and with infinitely more warmth. The ghost laughed lightly. 

Mavis decided then and there to break her rule. 

“Hey, you go ahead.” she said to Alec. “I’m gonna call my mom really quick, I’ll catch up to you.”

“Okay love, I won’t go far!” he said, planting a small kiss on her temple. When Alec was far enough away, Mavis walked slowly towards the ghost. What would she say? What was she _doing?_ It was too late to turn back now.

The ghost made a funny gesture, raising a curled up hand to her ear. Mavis frowned. The ghost laughed again, and pointed at Mavis’ pocket. Right. _Duh_. To anyone else, Mavis would look like a girl talking to thin air. She reached into her pocket and raised her cell phone to her ear. She felt her heart try to escape out of her throat. Luckily, the ghost woman assumed the burden of starting the dialogue. She opened her mouth and spoke in a light, pretty voice:

“ _C’est toi! Ma fillette. Cosette._ ”

Oh, right. Mavis didn’t speak French.

She felt her eyes well up with tears of bitter disappointment, tears that she didn’t understand. It’s not like she knew this ghost, not really, and yet she felt robbed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I don’t . . . I’m sorry.”

The young woman, the ghost, seemed to understand. She looked around, as if checking to make sure nobody was watching, and raised her transparent hand to Mavis’ face, brushing away an escaped tear with her thumb. Her brow furrowed, as if she was concentrating incredibly hard. Her eyes lit up, and she smiled, using her free hand to point at the corner of her curved mouth.

“Happy.” she said in heavily accented English. “ _Tr_ \- Happy.”

And then she turned around and sped away - glided away, really - leaving Mavis alone with her phone pressed to her ear.

That night, Mavis made Alec give her the first of many French lessons.

—

When she got back to America, she switched her LOTE track from Spanish to French. She made Alec tutor her in their spare time. She researched colleges with robust French studies departments. She planned an independent study abroad that would allow her to study haunted Parisian sites, especially those which appeared in French literature and early French cinema. Her parents were delighted to see her so dedicated to something. 

On the eve of her twenty third birthday, Mavis Marcano-Doyle received an email confirming that during her time in France, she’d be staying with a Monsieur Camille Duchamp in his Paris apartment.

_God_ , how she’d missed Paris. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can u tell i A) have never been outside of the country i was born in and B) can’t speak a lick of french?? ANYWAYS, if ur reading this, i luv u. next chapter coming soon-ish? goodbye, see u soon, cosette fauchelevant rights, xoxoxo


	5. The Inevitable Con

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which months of hiding in Jules’ linen closet finally pays off, I guess.

Éponine had never been one for philosophical revelry. Certainly not in life, but not really in her death, either. She was more of a doer than a thinker, really, which was difficult for someone trying to go unnoticed in a supply closet. She had more than once considered joining the poltergeist in the basement and just fucking shit up to cure her everlasting boredom, but instead she opted for busy work. She counted the supplies multiple times a day, she read the labels on every box over and over again until they were committed to memory. She’d occasionally move an object when a drunk couple knocked something over and put it back in the wrong spot. It kept her sane, these little tasks. Not _very_ sane, but sane enough.

For some reason, sitting in Not-Marius’ linen closet feeling like an absolute moron sent Éponine into an existential thought-spiral. In almost two hundred years of being dead, she’d never really taken time to think about the somewhat troubling logic of the universe in which she lived. One question plagued her more than all the others:

Who actually _was_ she?

The easy answer was Éponine’s ghost, right? But that wasn’t quite the truth, if she thought about it too hard (which she did). The form she was in, a transparent version of her former self, was just a punishment for being awful. Trapped in the body of the person who’d done the wrong. But just because she was in Éponine’s body didn’t mean she was actually Éponine, right? Maybe she was just as much Éponine as she was David or Alma or any of the other bodies that housed her soul. Did she have a brain anymore? Or was she just a soul in the shape of a person? She felt like Éponine. When she thought of the other people she was, viewed the other memories her soul contained, it felt like voyeurism. It felt like she was watching someone else. But Éponine’s memories were her’s. This ghost had more in common with Éponine than her body. She had her mind, her spirit, her opinions. 

She was also realizing that she and Éponine had the same taste in guys.

How pathetic was it to fall in love with Marius Pontmercy twice? He couldn’t even talk to her this time! He _barely_ knew she existed in the 19th century, and now he EXPLICITLY didn’t know she existed, and yet she found herself blushing every time he opened the linen closet. What was wrong with her?

To be fair, Jules _was_ downright adorable. He didn’t look anything like Marius. His hair was lighter and curlier, and his skin was covered in freckles. Marius had brown eyes, but Jules’ were a murky shade of green. He was shorter than Marius, and broader. His teeth were whiter (though, to be fair, everyone’s teeth were whiter in the 21st century), and his smile was more lopsided, less dimpled.

Éponine loved him all the same.

She loved the way he whistled off key while he cleaned, and the way he laughed out loud at jokes he heard in movies. When he forgot to close the closet door, Éponine had a full view of him bustling around the apartment he shared with Corinne. He was incredibly tidy, which meant that he was constantly busy, because Corinne was a human tornado. She left little messes everywhere for him to clean up, and when he complained about it, she’d just say “But you like to clean! If anything, you should be thanking me!”

Rotten as it may be, that’s what Éponine loved most of all. She loved when Jules bickered with Corinne.

More and more, their bickering was turning to arguing. Usually over stupid things, like loading the dishwasher improperly or choosing where to go out to eat. Nothing irreconcilable, nothing that couldn’t be cured with a heartfelt apology and a kiss, or makeup sex.

It was that last thing that tipped the scales in Éponine’s favor.

—

“Wait, are you serious?” Jules asked incredulously.

The conversation had started out simple enough. “You know,” Jules joked. “For two people with such little experience, we’re not bad.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Corinne said, giggling. “I have had a perfectly healthy amount of experience.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean. All the other stuff is great, don’t get me wrong, but actually having sex is like, you know? There’s nothing to prepare you for that.” Jules hadn’t expected to have a conversation like this, so he made an attempt at switching gears back to romantic. “I’m glad it was with you, though.”

Corinne went quiet for a while. When she finally looked at Jules, she was wearing a very odd expression, like someone watching a horror movie caught halfway between a laugh and a scream of terror. “Jules . . .” she started, taking her time with her words. “You know you weren’t my first, right?”

Yeah, Éponine pretty much hit the jackpot.

“Wait, are you serious?” Jules asked.

“Uh, yea, like a heart attack.” said Corinne. “Wait, was I your first?”

“I mean, yeah. _Yes_ , Corinne. I thought you said-“

“I didn’t lie to you about anything, if that’s what you’re implying.” Corinne spat defensively.

“I never said that. But you told me you’d never been in a serious relationship before.”

“Which is true!”

“But you’ve had sex?”

“Jesus Christ, what year is it?” Corinne asked, her voice picking up in volume. That was the way it always went - Corinne got loud and Jules got quiet. “Are we really arguing about casual sex right now, Jules? Like is that what we’re doing?”

“I’m not trying to argue about anything I don’t know why everything has to be an argument.” Jules said frustratedly. “But you always talk about how you had a hard time with commitment because, like, _why bother dating someone who isn’t your soulmate_ , but then like, by that logic, why bother _sleeping_ with someone who isn’t your soulmate?”

“Get a _grip_ , it’s not like sex has anything to do with love.”

“It does to me, Corinne! _Fuck!_ ”

This was it. This was what Éponine was waiting for. She had to strike while the iron was hot. 

She slid out of the linen closet stealthily, taking only a second to look at Jules’ face, twisted with anger and hurt and something else. She knew that what she was about to do was going to hurt him, but it was really for his own good. She had to trust that it was for his own good. 

She’d run through the plan so many times in her head, even walking through the motions when she had the apartment to herself, that it turned out to be incredibly easy. There were benefits, she supposed, to having been raised by a pair of lowlife con-artists. 

Just as Éponine tucked herself back into the linen closet, a chime rang out from Jules’ jacket.

“Where is that coming from?” Corinne asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously. 

Jules gave a weary shrug in return. “Hell if I know, Corinne, it’s your phone.”

Another chime. This time, both of their eyes darted towards the direction of the sound. The glow of her iPhone lock screen was visible through the thin material of Jules’ jacket pocket.

“You _bastard_.”

Jules looked from Corinne to the phone in confusion. “Why is that there?” he demanded, more perplexed than angry. Corinne let out a mean laugh.

“Oh, spare me, _lover boy_. You’re actually ridiculous, you know that? Go get me my fucking phone _now_.”

Jules wanted to defend himself, wanted to accuse her, but instead he walked over to the coat hook and fished her phone out of his pocket. He looked down at the screen more out of instinct than anything. He very nearly smiled at Corinne’s lock screen photo, a picture of Jules grinning, only half awake, wearing his sleep apnea machine, giving a thumbs up to the camera. It was a Snapchat screenshot, the caption read _“prince charming <33”_. It made him want to apologize, even though he didn’t think he was wrong.

And then he saw the text message.

“Who is Alice?” he asked venomously.

“Jules, _please_. Let’s not go down this route. You are not going to make this about me so that I’m the bad guy because I received a text message when you are _actually_ going through my phone. Like if you don’t trust me please, I’m begging you to just break up with me, because honestly that’s better than-“

“Is that what you want, Corinne?” Jules said. It came out mean, and Corinne was starting to cry, but Jules ignored that. “Do you _want_ us to break up? Like I literally barely remember what this fight is about but who cares, right? Because, you know,” he started to read off of her phone. “‘ _Maybe all of your fighting is just like you trying to get him to break up with you because you don’t want to be with him but you don’t want to hurt him either idk._ ’”

“What are you even saying right now?” Corinne asked, looking back and forth from the phone screen to Jules’ face. Jules didn’t look up at her.

“‘ _I’m probably overstepping idk but girl if it’s that bad I think you should just break up with him_.’ Wow, great news, Alice thinks we should break up! I’m so glad Alice weighed in, there’s a weight off of our shoulders, huh?”

“Give me my phone.”

“Here, take it.” Jules said. Corinne snatched it away, unlocking it and reading Alice’s texts over and over again. After a while, she met Jules’ gaze.

“She probably sent this to the wrong number.”

“That’s what you’re going with? Points for creativity, I guess.”

“Fuck you.” Corinne spat. She began texting, reading her words aloud as she typed them. “ _Hey Alice_ ,” she wrote, “ _I think you sent this to the wrong number_.”

“Corinne, you don’t need to involve your ex in this any more than-“

“You always think I’m lying! I literally didn’t text her, look, she texted this out of nowhere. She texted the wrong number.”

“You can delete texts, Corinne, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Oh my GOD. I actually can’t believe you. _Why_ would I have deleted my texts?”

“Well clearly you think I’m going through your phone even though I don’t know the password, so-“

“Okay _number one_ , the password is my own birthday so if you couldn’t guess the password you’re literally stupid. Number two-“

“I don’t have to listen to you insult me.”

“ _Number two_ , you OBVIOUSLY were going through my phone! Like oh my God!”

“If I was going through your phone I guess I’d have a good reason though, right? Since I guess you and Alice super close, having lots of conversations about me.”

“So you _are_ going through my phone!”

“ _No!_ ”

The phone chimed again. Corinne smiled smugly as she walked over to Jules, making a show of unlocking her phone and opening the text message so he could see. 

Her smile quickly vanished.

_“uhhh, this you? lololol_ ” Alice had typed. There was a screenshot of a message, clearly sent from Corinne’s phone. 

_“Okay hi, I’m sorry for coming to you with this but you’re like the only person I want to talk to right now.”_ Corinne had apparently texted. _“Things are so bad with Jules, like we’re fighting all the time and I feel like we’re just so different. I thought we were soulmates, but maybe I made a mistake. I just feel so bad all the time. I don’t know, what do you think I should do?”_

Jules stared at the screenshot. He felt himself go bright red with a hundred feelings at once. He looked at Corinne, waiting for her to say something. She was crying in earnest now, looking more pathetic and unraveled than he’d ever seen her. She sniffled a bit before she spoke.

“That’s not even how I type.” 

Jules just stared at her, not bothering to even dignify that with a response. What was he supposed to say? What were either of them supposed to say? 

“Do you think we’re soulmates?” he asked. It wasn’t rhetorical. He needed her to answer. She bit her lip, forcing a sob down her throat and into her chest. She answered in a small, broken voice.

“I don’t know, Jules, but I don’t think so. I haven’t for a couple of months now.”

_Holy shit._ Éponine wasn’t expecting _that_.

Jules stared at Corinne for another moment. Her mouth, nose, and cheeks had gone a deep shade of red, and her eyes were wide and glassy. She looked beautiful when she cried. It almost annoyed Jules.

Corinne tucked her phone into her pocket, grabbed her coat from the hook next to Jules’ jacket, and made her way towards the door.

“Corinne, _where_ are you going?”

“Home.” she answered, slamming the door behind her.

It took Jules fifteen minutes to calm down from the anger he felt. After the anger came the tears, which were worse. He tried calling Corinne, but she wasn’t answering. There was a bit of her strewn everywhere. Her little messes used to peeve him, but she was right, he did sort of like to clean up after her. Now, he just left them, reveling in the way it hurt his heart every time he looked at the bits of her she’d left behind. 

One thing Jules and Éponine had in common: they had a tendency to torture themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dearest reader, i know what ur thinking. “WHAT could have inspired [NAME REDACTED] to post not one, but TWO chapters, and on a monday no less?”
> 
> well, reader, the answer is simple. when i posted chapter 4 earlier i became aware that this fic has reached exactly 69 hits, and that beautiful, bawdy number triggered more inspiration than any mythic muse would have been able. nice.
> 
> ANYWAYS, éponine really done did it now folks lololol. now that all of the major players have been introduced, we’re picking up steam. might post another chapter in the next two days, but if not, new chapter coming as soon as i sleep off the weekend i’m about to have.
> 
> if you’re still reading this, you’re a baddie 💅💅💅 XOXO, HUGS AND KISSES, ETC.


	6. Three Becomes Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a bird has landed in Paris.

Mavis had deliberately ignored M. Duchamp’s question about which airport she would be landing in. She’d never minded taxis, and she didn’t really want to spend any more time in the airport than she had to. Airports made her anxious. Too many people, too much breath, too little air. Better to do all of the required introductions in the apartment.

“WELCOME TO FRANCE, MAVIS” the sign read (in English, too). 

“How did you figure me out?” Mavis asked the older gentleman. He flashed her a crooked smile.

“You’re accent is really good.”

“I’ve been practicing.” Mavis said. “Did you just guess which airport?”

“Uh, no. Your parents told me.”

“Are my parents texting you? Sorry about them, they are a bit . . . you know.”

“I do.” he answered, his smile widening. “I’d be the same way if it were my daughter.”

He made a motion with his arm, and Mavis was about to protest, say that she could manage her luggage (it really wasn’t that much), but his arm was offering something else entirely.

He wanted to shake her hand.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mavis.” M. Duchamp said. “Welcome to Paris.”

Mavis considered the older man’s hand. She was used to the weird looks she got after explaining that she didn’t shake hands, that she didn’t do any touching. Usually people thought it was a germs thing. Sometimes they’d joke, “saving it for your soulmate?”, which Mavis didn’t really find funny at all. Sometimes they’d try to convince her to change her mind, which Mavis liked even less.

M. Duchamp seemed very nice, and it was a long flight, so she was more than a little tired, and she felt fidgety and nervous, and she really didn’t like airports, and none of those things really explained why Mavis decided extend her own hand to his.

Oh.

Green light.

“Woah, holy shit.” Mavis said, and then immediately jerked her hand away from his to clap it over her mouth. She probably shouldn’t be swearing within ten minutes of meeting the guy. She was pretty sure he was religious, too.

M. Duchamp just laughed. “Well, that was . . . something.”

“Has that ever happened to you before?”

“Uh, something like that. As far as first meetings go, you’re a distant second.”

“Ouch. Who came first?”

“My late wife.”

This conversation was going so weirdly. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” M. Duchamp said, smiling like it really was.

“Was she . . . was she your soulmate? Sorry, I don’t know if you-“

“Yes, she was.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“Very. But you and I,” he went on, adjusting his glasses, “I guess we were pretty good friends at some point.”

“I guess so.”

Mavis studied her own hand the rest of the way to M. Duchamp’s apartment. She thought about how it had vibrated, rattled, really. She thought about how easily he spoke of his soulmate, and how much losing your soulmate must hurt. She thought about ghosts, and about how much he reminded her of the woman from Montrueil sur Mer.

She was so happy she’d taken his hand.

—

Paris was not a perfect city, but it was wonderful.

Maybe it was all in her head, but Mavis felt more productive in Paris. She was out of the house all the time, and she walked everywhere. She visited a new famous haunted site every week, and was unsurprised to find that most of the locations on her list weren’t haunted at all, just sort of decorated creepily. The ghosts in Paris were as shy as they’d been during her last trip to France, maybe even more so. She could easily go days without spotting a ghost, and every time she did their eyes would go wide and they’d take off in the opposite direction. Tough crowd.

“Ghosts, huh? I thought most people your age didn’t believe in ghosts.”

Mavis shrugged. She really wanted to tell him that she didn’t have a choice, that she saw them constantly, that sometimes she wondered if maybe she wasn’t seeing them at all, maybe she was really just crazy, like all of the people in those “I SEE GHOSTS” Facebook groups.

“Well, I do.” she said instead.

“So do I.” Duchamp replied, surprising her.

Mavis wanted so badly to tell him.

So she did.

“Can I say something to you that might sound like, completely insane?”

“Huh?”

“I mean just - you don’t have to believe me, okay? I’m not lying, but it’s okay if you don’t believe me.”

“Mavis, what are you talking about?”

“I can see them.” she said shakily. “Ghosts, I mean. I see them. So I have to believe.”

M. Duchamp’s eyes lit up.

“I believe you.”

—

Mavis spent most weekends cooped up in her new temporary room. M. Duchamp’s apartment had two bedrooms. Mavis’ room was covered in polaroids and posters, and it came furnished with a vanity table and a faux fur beam bag chair.

“My daughter’s stuff.” Duchamp explained. “She moved out earlier this year, but she left some of her old stuff behind, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Mavis said. The room reminded her a bit of the kind she’d seen in Disney Channel Original Movies. “How old is your daughter?”

“Twenty two.” M. Duchamp answered, smiling. “I’ll have her over for dinner some time. You should meet her, I think you’d get along.”

Mavis wasn’t so sure. Based on the pictures, the (wildly photogenic) Duchamp girl was incredibly popular - every one seemed to feature a different friend with their arms thrown around her. Mavis had a grand total of three friends, four if you count M. Duchamp, and two if you don’t count her parents.

“I hope so.” Mavis replied.

The vanity table made for a perfectly sufficient desk once Mavis had relocated it’s mirror to a shelf in the closet. It didn’t take long before Mavis’ things were everywhere. The room looked just as much hers as it did the Duchamp girl’s. She’d even grown fond of the posters.

Nights in Paris were the best. Mavis was something of a night owl, hunched over the vanity desk long after the sun had set, warming her face by the light of her laptop. She loved the way it sounded, working late at night, the bustling city trapped behind the window and it’s girlish drapes, the whirring noises of a quiet household serving as the score to the sound of her frenzied typing. 

And, on one otherwise ordinary evening, the sound of keys. That was new.

M. Duchamp wasn’t really one for midnight strolls, as far as Mavis could tell. Maybe he’d gone on an errand and she hadn’t heard him leave?

There were footsteps, much lighter than M. Duchamp’s. They grew louder and louder - someone was coming towards her. Mavis rose from the chair and faced the door stupidly, bracing herself for confrontation. The door swung open forcefully. The girl swore.

“Oh FUCK, the exchange girl. Fuck!”

“Corinne? Is that you?”

The girl, Corinne, looked up at Mavis and sniffed. She was visibly crying. It took a second to recognize her behind the bloodshot eyes and running mascara, but on closer examination, she really was just as pretty as she looked in all the polaroids. Pretty, but definitely more tired-looking. 

“Corinne, what are you-”

The girl threw herself into her father’s arms and began to cry in earnest. M. Duchamp met Mavis’ eyes, clearly just as confused with the evening’s events as she was. Mavis took this opportunity to grab her laptop and slip out of the room to give the two as much privacy as the tiny apartment would allow. She made a noble attempt to drown out the sounds of Corinne’s sobbing with her keyboard typing, but really, the living room was not that far away, and Corinne Duchamp had a voice that carried.

“We” - sob - “We broke” - sob - “We broke up. And it’s all” - sob - “all my” - more of a retching sound than a sob, really - “My fault!”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Why don’t you go to sleep, you’ll have a clearer head in the morning.”

“O-” - sob - “Okay.”

M. Duchamp closed the bedroom door gingerly behind him when he finally left. He glanced apologetically at Mavis.

“I’m so sorry about that, here, you can sleep in my room.”

“No, it’s really okay.” Mavis said. “I’m more than good with the couch.”

“No, really, I insist.”

“Trust me, I come out here in the middle of the night to get my work done anyways. Please, let me stay out here. You’d be doing me a favor.”

“Only if you’re sure . . .”

“I’m positive.” Mavis reassured. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s going to be fine.” M. Duchamp answered, sounding unsure. “Break ups, you know?”

“Yeah.” Mavis lied. 

Mavis got a fair amount of work done. Sleeping was another story entirely. It wasn’t that the couch wasn’t comfortable, it was just that the sounds of Corinne’s muffled sobs from across the apartment didn’t make for the most effective lullaby.

—

“Good morning.” 

It wasn’t morning at all, it was half past noon. Corinne emerged from her bedroom very sheepishly. Mavis had considered waking Corinne up for breakfast, but she decided against it. What would she even say? Hey, we never really introduced ourselves, but I’m Mavis. Sorry you cried yourself to sleep, want scrambled eggs?

“Hi, good morning.” she replied from the couch. Corinne shuffled across the hard wood floor in her sock feet. “I’m Mavis.”

“I’m Corinne. I’m sorry for stealing the bed last night, I forgot you were here.” Her voice was watery, and it wobbled a bit during her apology.

“It’s fine. The couch is super comfortable.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Corinne said with a small smile. She judged her bedroom door open a bit wider. “Do you want to . . . ?”

Mavis really did not want to, but she also really didn’t want to be rude, so she rose from the couch and walked tentatively into Corinne’s bedroom. “Thanks.” she said, absentmindedly.

“Thanks for what?”

“You know, the room. It’s really nice, so. Thank you.”

Corinne frowned at Mavis, more confused than upset. “Aren’t you supposed to be a foreign exchange student?”

“I . . . am.” Mavis answered. “I’m an American.”

“Oh. You’re French is really good.” Corinne’s eyes began welling up with tears. “Jules was good at languages.”

Mavis was really out of her element here, so she had no idea that the worst possible thing to say was “Who’s Jules?”

At that question, Corinne burst into tears. Oh God. Mavis hesitated, but fuck it, she’d already touched one of the Duchamps, why not keep up the streak? Mavis attempted to mimic the the sort of soothing hair strokes that M. Duchamp had used to comfort her last night, but instead she delivered a series of awkward head pats. (There was no recognition, which Mavis was secretly bummed about. At least knowing each other in a past life would have given them something else to talk about.)

“Hey,” Mavis began, “I’m sorry for asking, we don’t have to talk about-”

“He was my boyfriend!” Corinne said, sniffing very loudly. “But we broke up because, because, I don’t know! I didn’t text her, but she has a picture, so I did? Or I forgot? Or they’re all playing a trick on me! Am I being gaslit? I don’t know! But Jules looked so sad! But he was going through my phone and he LIED about it to my face! Fuck him! I hate him! Except I don’t I really really don’t I really like him he’s the nicest person I ever met and we usually get along so well but moving in with him ruined everything and I don’t know I think I’m right about the soulmates thing I think we made a mistake, I mean, I HOPE we made a mistake, or else we’re ghost now! And I don’t want to be a ghost! I just want my best friend back!”

Uh . . . okay. That was . . . a lot of information. So Jules was Corinne’s boyfriend? But they broke up because . . . something about a phone maybe? And there was something in there about soulmates and ghosts that Mavis REALLY wanted to ask more about but that was probably a very inappropriate impulse so she quickly suppressed it. Mavis really couldn’t come up with a productive response to that, but she needed to say something, because a considerable number of seconds had passed since Corinne’s monologue and the silence was veering into uncomfortable territory. 

“Did you bring your stuff with you?”

“What?”

“From your apartment. Did you bring your stuff here? I could help you put everything back.”

“Oh.” Corinne’s lip was trembling. Apparently there wasn’t really a safe topic. “No, I didn’t bring anything. I was kind of stupid about the whole leaving thing. I was going for a dramatic exit, but I didn’t really think this far ahead.”

“I can go with you to get your stuff, if you want.”

“You’d do that?” Corinne asked, and oh no now she looked like she was really going to start crying. “You don’t even know me!”

“It’s, it’s okay. I don’t have to go. I just thought maybe you wouldn’t want to go see your, you know, maybe you wouldn’t want to go back alone.”

At this, Corinne pulled Mavis into a very tight hug. To Mavis’ surprise, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. She wrapped her arms around the shorter girl, hugging her back. 

“Okay, God, alright.” Corinne said after pulling away. “Enough crying. Time to - where’s my mirror?”

“What? Oh! The closet.”

“Why?”

“I, uh, needed the desk space.” Mavis answered, feeling her cheeks warm up in spite of the fact that she hadn’t said anything especially embarrassing.

Corinne quickly found the mirror and propped it up on the bed, studying her own reflection with determination.

“What are you doing?”

“Admiring myself.” she said, her eyes still fixed upon her own face. “Everyone looks pretty after they cry.”

Mavis laughed, which made Corinne laugh too. That brought it up to five. Five friends counting Corinne, three if you still don’t count her parents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no update lol. anyways i hope u appreciate the fact that my writing has REGRESSED since my last update, but i had to bang this one out or else i'd just end up abandoning the whole thing. i will almost certainly come back and edit this chapter to hell and back. i've also made the executive decision to start using the end notes my personal diary entries, so have fun with that. anyways, if ur reading i think ur a bad biddie, comment down below what u want me to leave u in my will and i'll make it happen xoxoxoxoxoox
> 
> EDIT: POSTED THIS AND LOGGED ON TO TUMBLR DOT COM ON THE DAY THAT THE DESTIEL EPISODE AIRED AND YOU KNOW WHAT I TAKE IT BACK!!! I’M NOT EDITING THIS CHAPTER EVER!!!!! GOOD WRITING DOES NOT MATTER GOOD NIGHT!!!!!!! XX


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